Her son, Cedric, 4 1/2, told her that Odette Green, a day-care center volunteer, had twisted his ear when he wouldn't sit.

Brock, 29, marched back to the Think Life day-care center, 1770 Dixie Highway, and confronted Green about 3 p.m. Wednesday.

There was pushing. Eventually, a fistfight. Green, bloodied, went to the kitchen, got a knife and fatally stabbed Brock, police say.

Brock's 6-year-old son Henry watched from the car.

"[Green) hit her three times with the knife," Henry said.

Brock collapsed in the center's play yard, surrounded by bright plastic furniture and climbing toys. A dozen children looked on. The mother of four died at the scene. Green, 23, who had started volunteering at the center two weeks ago, was charged with second-degree murder by Fort Lauderdale police.

After the incident, Brock's daughter cried, "Mama dead, Mama dead" over and over again, as day care workers comforted her.

It was a tragedy for a day care center built on survival. Think Life Inc., is a non-profit center for families affected by AIDS, said Georgia Foster, its founder. The day care center, opened in December 1993, serves children from newborns to age 6.

Angela Brock had recently moved to her 17-year-old daughter's apartment, the Linden Apartments on Northwest Ninth Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. Brock lived there with daughter Tysina Brock, two sons, Henry, 6, Cedric, 4, and another daughter, Terri, 2 1/2, in a two-bedroom apartment crawling with cockroaches. Tysina also has two infant children of her own.

Tysina Brock said her mother had AIDS and so was able to enroll her children at Think Life, a nonprofit center. Day care authorities would not confirm whether Brock had the illness.

Brock also was working to become a paralegal through a program at Broward Community College. Court records show that Brock pleaded no contest to an aggravated assault charge in 1992. She was also charged with disorderly conduct in 1995.

Her son, Cedric, a fidgety, boisterous child, and Terri, her youngest, had been attending the day care center for the past year. Tysina Brock said Cedric had been repeatedly warned to behave by day care workers and there was a threat the boy would be expelled if his behavior didn't improve. The family had managed to smooth things over.

"We've talked about that place and how the teachers didn't have any patience," Tysina Brock said. "One teacher pinched Cedric a while ago. He can be hard-headed sometimes, but the teachers are supposed to know how to deal with that."

On Wednesday afternoon, Brock first drove to Lauderdale Manors Elementary School to pick up Henry. She then went to the day care center. According to Tysina Brock, Cedric told his mother Green had twisted his ear as punishment.

"She said I wasn't sitting down," Cedric told the Sun-Sentinel. "But I was."

After the stabbing, victim advocates began counseling the children who had seen the fight.

"They know something was terribly wrong," said Gloria Burnell, victim advocate for the Broward Sheriff's Office. The children will need crisis counseling, she said.

Green too, was a mother who had to deal with need and pressures of day care. Green, the mother of three young daughters and one son, lives on the ground floor of a run-down two-story white apartment complex in the 1300 block of Southwest 35th Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.

Within the last two weeks, she gave birth prematurely to her son. He is still in the hospital, according to neighbors. Green was supposed to bring him home on Feb. 28.

Neighbors described Green as kind and generous.

"She would give you the heart out of her body. She was very kind. She made sure [her kids) ate well and bought them nice clothes," Aubrey Capron, the building's superintendent, said.

Capron said he and Green cooked for each other about twice a week and she often borrowed his car to take her children to school or day care.

He chatted with her Wednesday morning while Green waited for the bus to go to her volunteer job. He said he asked her for a $100 loan and Green offered to get him the money on Friday.

Her friends were surprised that Green would resort to violence. Green's criminal record includes one arrest for petty theft in 1996. She pleaded no contest a year later.

From 1993 to 1997, Green filed several domestic violence complaints, although it's unclear against whom, civil court records show. In 1994, she filed a paternity suit on behalf of one of her children.

The Fort Lauderdale Think Life relies on volunteers to assist teachers with the 80 students there. Not all children at the day care center have AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, Foster said.

State regulations do not require day care center volunteers who work less than 40 hours a week to undergo a background check, said Shawn Lamarche, a licensing and enforcement administrator with Broward County.

"I hate to say it takes someone to die to make change. But I want to look into" toughening standards, Lamarche said. Foster said her agency performs background checks on all workers, including volunteers. On Wednesday evening, Lamarche was trying to find other day care centers that could take the children from Think Life because the center will be closed today.

Foster, who founded Think Life on her $4,000 lottery winnings after her son died of AIDS, is concerned about the nonprofit's future. The agency has several locations for child and adult day care, as well as housing and education programs.

"I am in shock. It was such a wonderful program we had," Foster said. "And it could be over in minutes."